


Frisky Pickles

by decadent_mousse



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Belly Rubs, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pickles - Freeform, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 07:05:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3348038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decadent_mousse/pseuds/decadent_mousse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newt's Valentine's Day gift to Hermann has dire consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frisky Pickles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bravinto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravinto/gifts).



> Happy Valentine's Day _and_ Happy Birthday to my partner, [bravinto](http://archiveofourown.org/users/bravinto/pseuds/bravinto)! :* :*

Hermann had a secret.  Newt was pretty sure he was the only one who knew about it, except for maybe his family.  Though considering how strained relations were between Hermann and his family, maybe even they didn’t know.

Newt scrolled down the website he was browsing through, glancing over his shoulder just to make sure Hermann hadn’t crept up behind him or anything.  He hadn’t – he was still scribbling down equations on his chalkboard, completely oblivious.  Even so, he was going to have to make sure he cleared his internet history after.  Hermann didn’t _usually_ mess with Newt’s computer, but it would be just his luck that he’d decide to, and that would totally ruin the surprise.

~

The package was late.  

He’d been pretty nervous about ordering them from online from an overseas location and having it delivered to a Shatterdome of all places, but he’d looked everywhere he could think to look locally.  Pickles – _good_ pickles – were hard to come by these days.  He’d found plenty of cheap, generic pickles, but they looked pretty limp and gross, and if he was going to do this, he wanted to do it right.

The ones he’d finally settled on were sweet “gourmet” pickles.  He didn’t know enough about pickles to know whether or not they could actually be “gourmet” or if the site was just pulling his leg, but they had good reviews and he was out of other options, so he’d put in his credit card info and gone for it.

And now the package was late.  Only a few days late, but still, he was worried.  Every time the door to the lab opened, he leapt up hoping to intercept a package and was disappointed every time.  Even worse, Hermann was starting to get suspicious.

“You’ve been behaving strangely today,” he commented.

“Stranger than usual?” Newt joked.

The other man frowned and looked up from his computer screen.  “Is everything alright?”

“S-sure!  Why wouldn’t it be?”

Hermann stared at him for a long moment and Newt felt sweat trickle down his back.  There was no way he could _know_ , right?  Whatever he suspected, there was no way in hell he could know that Newt was trying to smuggle pickles into the lab without him noticing.

~

A week after the day it was _supposed_ to show up, the jar of pickles finally arrived.  Newt had started to wonder if they’d gotten delivered to the wrong place or someone had eaten them before they’d reached the lab, but then a small box got delivered – and inside, wrapped in bubble wrap, was the jar.  It looked almost exactly like the picture on the website, which was a good sign, right?

The jar was one of those fancy kind of mason jars that probably cost more than the pickles themselves did.  The pickles themselves looked… well, like pickles, but Newt wasn’t exactly an expert on what did or did not constitute a good-looking pickle.  Hopefully his internet research hadn’t steered him wrong.

The website had asked whether he wanted it gift-wrapped and he hadn’t really been sure how you gift-wrapped a jar, but it was supposed to be a Valentine’s gift, so he’d clicked “yes.”  It turned out “gift-wrapped” was a deep red ribbon wrapped around the mouth and lid of the jar and tied off with a cute little bow that honestly looked kind of weird on a jar of pickles.

It was kind of cute, though.  Hopefully Hermann would think so, too.  Or be so dazzled by pickle lust to notice the dorky ribbon work.  He planned on leaving them on Hermann’s desk, but he was two seconds away from setting the jar down when Hermann walked into the lab and caught him red-handed.

“What’s that?”

“Your gift?”

Hermann blinked.  “Gift?”

“For Valentine’s Day, dude.”

“I’d forgotten.”  Hermann gave him an apologetic look.  “I didn’t get you anything.”

“Don’t even worry about it, man.  I wanted to get you something, I got you something.”

He sighed and squinted at the jar.  “Are those… _pickles_?”

“They sure are!”

Hermann walked over and took the jar from him, holding it up to the light and giving the pickles an admiring look.

Newt grinned.  “You like them?”

“I haven’t _tried_ them yet, Newton.”

“No, but I mean– pickles.  You like pickles.  This was a good idea.  I did good.”

“Er, yes.”

Something like uncertainty briefly flickered in his eyes, but before Newt had much time to think about it, Hermann was unwrapping the ribbon from the pickles and the moment was gone.

“Where did you get these?”

“I shopped around online.”

“You’ve been planning this for awhile, then.”

“Yep!  I did research and everything.  Only the best pickles for my fella.”

Hermann snorted loudly, but when he side-eyed Newt it was affection, not annoyance, in his eyes.  “Your ‘fella?’”

“I’m going through the ‘trying out pet names’ phase of our relationship.”

“God help me.”

Newt walked over and wrapped his arms around Hermann’s waist and whispered against the back of his neck, “My perfect integer.”

Hermann’s shoulders shook with laughter.

~

Watching Hermann actually eat the pickles was an interesting experience.  It reminded Newt of one of those nature documentaries that were ninety percent gazelles gently grazing and occasionally looking around to make sure nothing was about to eat them.

Hermann unscrewed the lid off the pickle jar almost reverently.

“Did you want anything else with those?  We could slice them up and put them on a sandwich, if you want?”

The other man gave Newt a mortified look.

“Or– or we could… not.”

Hermann seemed to consider it.  “Perhaps if there are some left over afterwards, we can.”

“ _If_ there are some left over?”

And, really, that should’ve been his first clue.

~

Okay, so apparently Hermann had _two_ secrets.  One was his love for pickles and the second was his stomach was apparently really, _really_ pickle intolerant.  Newt had always known he had a sensitive stomach, but he hadn’t realized pickles were a no-go.  That didn’t even make sense!  He had _seen_ Hermann eating pickles before, he knew he had.  Did he – what? – love pickles so much that he ate them anyway even though he knew they made him puke?  Because that was–

Pretty hardcore.

He felt terrible about it, though.  The last thing he’d wanted was for Hermann to spend all day puking his guts out.

“How are you feeling, man?”

“Delightful.”

Newt gently rubbed the back of Hermann’s neck.  “I can’t believe you ate the whole jar.”

“I admit I got somewhat… overzealous.”

He was still looking pretty green.  

“You love pickles that much?”

Hermann took a deep breath and for a second Newt thought that was it – he was gonna blow – but it didn’t happen.  

“Dude, that’s _ridiculous_.”

He narrowed his eyes, and Newt started laughing.  Then Hermann started laughing, albeit softly and with a pained look on his face.  

“We’ve known each other for a decade, how did I not know this about you?”

“That I like pickles or that I’m intolerant to them?”

“Either?  Both?”  

“There are quite a few things that disagree with my stomach, and most of them I’m content to leave alone, but…”

“But you really like pickles, I get it.  I just– if I’d known you had this kind of reaction to them, I would’ve gotten something else.  I _swear_ I wasn’t trying to sabotage Valentine’s Day with indigestion.”

Hermann chuckled.  “I believe you.”

“Do _all_ pickles do this to you?  I mean, are there Hermann-safe pickles I can get next time?”

“If they exist, I haven’t found them yet.  I suspect it’s something in the pickling process itself that makes them disagree with me.”

Newt had this really vivid mental image of Hermann sitting down with every variety of pickle imaginable and eating it.  It was pretty hilarious and he had to muffle a snicker, because Hermann wasn’t feeling good and it’d be mean to laugh, right?

“Newton.”

Oh crap.

Hermann was staring at him and Newt had this sinking realization that he hadn’t been all that successful at actually muffling his laughter.  He wasn’t glaring, though, so that was a good sign.  Though that might’ve just been because he was too weak from the aftermath of the pickles.

“Hermann.”  Newt pointed at him.  “If there’s a pickle in the world you can eat, I’ll find it.”

“Really.”

“ _Really_.  Whatever it takes, man!  And even if it turns out _all_ pickles are bad, we’ll find some other way.  Maybe we can make you a sandwich.  Slap some mayo on there and some turkey or something, maybe it’ll help counteract it or something.”

Hermann groaned and sat back, covering his face in his hands.  “Please, don’t mention food.”

Newt watched him breathe shallowly through his nose, eyes closed, still looking like he was ready to hurl any second.  

“Wanna go to our room?”

“I can’t afford to let this incapacitate me, Newton.  I have work to do.”

He didn’t look like he was in any rush to get up, though, and Newt couldn’t blame him.  He kind of doubted he was going to be able to get any work done in the state he was in – not that Hermann would let that stop him from _trying_.  Newt could just picture him throwing up all over his equations.

He could fix this.  Well, maybe not _fix_ it, but he could help.  He reached over and gently tugged Hermann’s shirt out of his pants.

The other man’s eyes cracked open suspiciously.  “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Newt said innocently.

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do,” Hermann replied tiredly, “but I am in no condition for–”

“I’m not gonna do what you think I’m gonna do.  It’s totally innocent, I swear.”

He would’ve stopped if Hermann asked him to at that point, but after a moment Hermann’s eyes drifted shut again and he nodded.

Newt kept going until he had the shirt untucked then he reached under the layers of shirt and sweater and lightly rubbed his fingers across Hermann’s stomach.  Hermann’s breath hitched, and Newt froze for a second – he wasn’t sure if that meant “I want you to stop,” “that feels good,” or “I’m about to throw up on you.”  

“Is this okay?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He nodded, even though Hermann couldn’t see it, and kept rubbing.  He laid his hand against his skin and rubbed small circles with the palm of his hand.  “Let me know if I’m making you feel extra queasy or if it hurts or anything.”

Hermann groaned.  “No.  That– it feels… nice.”

His stomach was usually pretty flat, but Newt could feel a bit of bloat there now, though he wasn’t sure if it was from his digestive problems or if it was just from eating too much in general.  That had been a pretty huge jar.

He thought about going down to medical to see if they had something that might help, but getting anything out of those guys was like pulling teeth.  Anything short of a life or death situation got brushed off.  They’d both had a hell of a time convincing them that both of their day-to-day meds counted as essential, so the odds of them giving him anything for Hermann’s stomach were pretty slim.

_Maybe if I tell them he has explosive diarrhea…_ he pondered.  Really, for all he knew that _could_ start happening.  He had no way of knowing for sure.  So it wouldn’t _really_ be a lie, it’d be more like an… educated guess of what _could_ happen, eventually.

“Do not,” Hermann muttered softly.

Newt froze for a second.  Had he said that out loud?  He was pretty sure he hadn’t said that out loud.  He shrugged innocently.  “I didn’t say anything.”

“No, but you were _thinking_ it loudly.  I know that look.  Whatever it is, don’t do it.”

“You don’t even know what it is!”

Hermann gave him a look.

“I was just gonna go down to the med bay and see if some, uh, colorful descriptions of the human digestive system might get me a little something.”

He covered his face in his hands and sighed deeply.  “That is completely unnecessary, Newton.”

“Alright, alright!  Okay!”  If Hermann wanted to try just riding it out, Newt was willing to respect his decision as long as he wasn’t, like, _dying_ or anything.

Hermann relaxed, safe in the knowledge that Newt wasn’t going to go harass the medical staff with his extensive knowledge of human anatomy.

Newt leaned in, still rubbing gentle circles against the other man’s stomach.  He kissed the corner of Hermann’s mouth.  “Happy Valentine’s Day,” he said, nuzzling his cheek.

The mathematician gave him a fond smile.  Then he threw up. 


End file.
